"We've got mining going on in Bendigo, we've got the Fosterville mine, we've got the Costerfield one and all new ones and there are some estimates that there is as much gold still in the ground in that region as there has already been taken out, it's just a little bit harder to find," he said.

It's a fundamental human yearning to be a part of something bigger than one's self, and maybe that's what drove my mate Ash to die, far from home, in a bloody foreign war against Islamic State, writes C August Elliott.